


Navigational

by WyrmLivvy



Category: Disney Princesses
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 09:52:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7710547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WyrmLivvy/pseuds/WyrmLivvy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College AU </p><p>A day in the life of Fa Mulan at university.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Navigational

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lady_Katana4544](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Katana4544/gifts).



The first time Mulan was mistaken for a boy on campus, she had assembled the outfit she had by accident. Now, she does it on purpose. 

She placed a baseball cap over her short hair and dropped apartment keys into her baggy pants. She almost toed on her flats but remembered that when she was Ping, the name she introduced herself as in her male disguise, sneakers were worn. 

Mulan walked down the stairs and out onto the street in the direction of the farmer’s market. Usually, she shopped for ingredients with her housemate and girlfriend, Jasmine, but she was currently working on a paper, so this morning Mulan set out alone. 

She walked with her feet apart, her hands in her pockets. It’s different moving about as Ping. She had a kind of invisibility she didn’t have as Mulan. There were no catcalls, no “compliments” that fetishized her for her race. She wanted to finished her errand quickly and return home. 

A guy passing by bumps into her shoulder. “Sorry, man,” he said, and walks on. 

Once Mulan arrived at her intended destination, she grabbed a wicker shopping basket. 

She’s stopped at an apple stall when a familiar voice to the side of her says “Hello _Ping_.”

“Hi, Shang.” Mulan said. Her voice high on the “hi”. She catches herself on Shang, her voice goes lower. 

“Here’s some advice.” Shang said, holding out his own shopping basket and pointing at Mulan’s. 

Mulan wasn’t sure she got the message he was trying to convey. Was he trying to critique her choice of fruits and vegetables? 

She looked at her basket. It was held on the crook of her elbow, her arm bended and her hand out, palm down and curled lightly. 

She looked at Shang. Like her, Shang’s arm was also in an “L” shape, except the basket did not hang at where the arm bended, but was held in his hand, which curled around the handle in a fist. 

Mulan shifted the basket until she was holding it like Shang. 

Shang smiled and she knew she had done something right. 

Later when they were under the shade of a tree and apart from the crowds, they chatted more.

“I was holding the basket in a girly way, right?” Mulan asked. “And that’s why you corrected me.”

“Yes.” Shang said, “Since you’re presented the way you are today, not that there’s something with gir-” 

“Thanks.” Mulan said, interrupting Shang before he could give an apology that was not needed. He had helped her and she knew what he meant. Shang did not think girls were lesser, but rather he knew that holding the basket the way she had could have given her away. 

His situation was different from Mulan’s, and he had a sharper sensitivity to these things. 

“You aren’t like me?” He had asked her, once he found out Ping was a crossdressed Mulan. 

“No, I’m not a trans man.” Mulan had answered simply. 

Mulan was broken out of her thoughts of past memories when Shang offered to help her carry her farmer’s market purchases. She thanked him for the offer but declined it, telling him that nearby a granny was struggling with a bag of potatoes. 

“See you later.” He said before he walked off to help, and Mulan said the words in return. 

She returned home and stowed away the food before she went outside again to go to campus and eat lunch at a dining hall. The vegetarian options left much to be desired which was why she often prepared her own food or ate what Jasmine cooked but here was also the convince factor. Sometimes she didn’t have the time, energy or inclination to cook, such as now. Therefore, she wound up in the cafeteria, hoping to have an acceptable meal before going off to meet at the library for a group project. She had showered and changed her outfit before she left the house and now wore flats and a favorite dress - her jade necklace laid against it, no longer obscured by a jacket. 

Mulan sat down at an empty table, frowning at the soggy, overcooked green beans and dry, hard textured rice on her plate. The corn at least looked acceptable. There was pasta and fries practically everyday, those she was tired of. She had decided to pass on the kale and quinoa salad. She sighed, regretting the decision of eating at the university’s dining hall but she had already swiped her student ID card and spent the credits for the meal. 

“Konnichiwa.” 

Mulan looked up, frowning. She remembered she was Mulan now and not Ping, and that was a why a strange white man was speaking to her. She missed Ping’s invisibility. Random men would not try to greet him like that, though his ethnicity would be guessed at too. Her already limited appetite disappeared. 

Mulan shook her head nervously and left for the exit. 

She goes to the library and reached it without incident. Once she had arrived and the work started, the group project takes her mind off things. Time seemed to flow quicker and Mulan was already finished with her portion of the slides when the unofficially designated group leader suggests that they were done for the day and could meet again on another. Everyone agrees and Mulan’s mind switched to thinking about what to make for dinner as she waited for the bus at the stop outside of the main library. 

Mulan returned to the apartment and was happy to find that Jasmine was already back first. She was combing recently washed hair, her face clear of her usual makeup. 

“Need any help?” Mulan asked, because Jasmine had alot of hair and some of it was hard to reach, unless someone helped her or unless she had it arranged like how it was now, half of it over one shoulder. 

“Not this time.” Jasmine said. “I’m almost done.”

“Alright.” Mulan said, slipping off her shoes and putting on house slippers. “I’ll start preparing dinner.” She goes to her bedroom and removed her backpack before going to the kitchen. 

Mulan began to measure out enough for two bowls of rice, and then added enough for seconds. She’s washing the grains when Jasmine walked in too, her hair neatly tied. 

Mulan hadn’t put on an apron yet because she was just preparing the rice and hadn’t really begun to cook.

There’s two aprons and Jasmine grabbed the closest one, the one decorated with a cartoon cat, which Mulan had brought from her home. 

Mulan doesn’t say anything about that because it’s happened before and they wore each other’s clothing so this did not bother her. 

After she started steaming the rice in the rice cooker, she puts on Jasmine’s, which is a solid rich purple, and began to prepare the eggplant and green peppers. 

Jasmine opened the fridge and complimented Mulan on the fine bundle of fruits and vegetables she had gathered from the farmer’s market. 

“Have I told you lately that I love you?” Jasmine said.

“Yes,” Mulan replied, smiling, “And it’s always nice to hear it.” 

Besides the eggplants and green peppers, Mulan also stir fried some string beans and set aside a bowl of salted edamame beans as a side dish. 

Jasmine made use of crops Mulan had purchases too and cooked up a curry with cauliflower, peas, carrots and potatoes. She also makes a fruit salad with strawberries, kiwi, mango and grapes. They prepared things together their hands brush together - passing sauces, washing vegetables over the sink, and sides touched while handling pots or pans over the stove. 

They clean the kitchen together before sitting down with their food, two bowls of rice and two mugs of soy milk. 

It wasn’t like they were in a romantic restaurant - there was no dim lightning, special glasses or plush seats. But Mulan felt cozy and warm seated in a folding chair by their small, worn dinning table. The last time Jasmine and her had went to such a restaurant the hostess had smiled at them thought they were having a “girl’s night out”. Mulan wondered if her smile would have dropped if she had corrected her on her and Jasmine being on a romantic date and not a platonic one. 

She knew part of her current feeling came from having cooked with Jasmine the food that was before them. Mulan thought Jasmine had the feeling too because she reaches across the table and placed her hand over Mulan’s. 

They make eye contact and smile at each other before Mulan raised her mug and Jasmine copied the action. “Cheers,” they say together. 

Mulan sipped her soy milk, glad to be spending the end of a long day together with her love.


End file.
